GOP fired up for next election cycle

Sunday

FORT MADISON - The last time U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, spoke at a Lee County Republican fundraiser, his plane had to make a near-crash landing after barely making it 100 feet off the ground.

So, the longtime senator freely admits it took him some time to get over the trauma to return to the event.

Grassley came back this year with a message that was important enough to brave the once-ill-fated fundraiser. Plus, he traveled by car this time.

"We're gathered together because in 15 months, we're having another election. Then, in two years beyond that, we're going to have a presidential election, and we've got to do a lot of work to get to the point where we can say that this country is well-governed," Grassley told the crowd of about 150 Republicans gathered Saturday evening at the Comfort Inn and Suites in Fort Madison.

Grassley laid out the importance of voting by focusing on the failures he sees in President Barack Obama, who was elected to his second term in 2012.

He said the Democratic administration has not delivered on what it said it would, pointing most specifically to transparency. He said he could name probably 100 other things where the president has not lived up to his promises.

"Each one of you here in this audience has something in mind that you don't like about this administration. We could be here all night and probably wouldn't get to the bottom of the list," Grassley said.

He also said the fate of the majority of the United States Senate will depend on the next election. Grassley said Republicans need to pull together, even if they were not enamored of all the candidates either in Iowa or other states, to ensure Republicans get the majority to put forward their agenda during the next Congress.

There was a similar theme from the slate of Republicans at the state level.

The Republicans in the audience cheered and clapped most for the speech delivered by Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz, who focused his comments on passing voter identification.

"I'm going to start off by saying something extremely controversial. Are you ready? If you have to show an ID to get on an airplane, to open a checking account, to buy beer, why not when you vote?" Schultz said.

He said the vote to pass voter identification failed to pass the Iowa Senate on a party-line vote of 26-24. Schultz said state Sen. Tom Courtney, D-Burlington, was "lying" when he said he would support voter ID, as he was among the 26 Democrats who opposed the legislation.

Courtney said previously he would support it, if it contained provisions that would ensure everyone got an ID.

"There are a lot of ways that people can cheat, and unless we have something where we start going after these people, it's just going to be like jaywalking," Schultz said. "So, we need to make sure that we get this message out, that we have integrity."

State Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, echoed the comments by Schultz, saying he sees firsthand the number of bills that either pass or fail on the 26-24 split.

He said the Republicans lost the majority in the Iowa Senate by less than 500 votes, which is why every vote matters.

Grassley put the importance of the next election, and future elections, a little differently.

"So, what can we do with Washington (D.C.), an island surrounded by reality, those of us out here in the real world? Those of us out here in the real world have to send people to Washington that understand what the real world's like," Grassley said near the end of his speech.

The event concluded with speeches by the United States Senate candidates, vying for the open seats that will be vacated by retiring U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and state Rep. Mark Lofgren, R-Muscatine, who is vying for the 2nd District congressional seat.

Three of the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, Matt Whitaker, an attorney; Sam Clovis, a professor; and David Young, Grassley's former chief of staff, spoke at the event. Rather than seeing their primary challenges with each other as a negative, the candidates saw it as a positive.

Clovis said it was an opportunity to make friends. Young said the Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Braley is not being sharpened, whereas the Republicans are.

"We're going to sharpen each other, and we're going to have the best candidate come out of this race," Young said. "We can win this race. We can get the majority and turn this ship around."

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